Another Monday

It seems that Mondays have become the day on which we have to attend a funeral. As I expected and discussed in my prior post, our 19 year old patient Gbah died Sunday evening. We called at 5:45 Sunday evening to find out how he was and was told he had died at 5:30, just 15 minutes before.

So our morning started off by attending a funeral. When we got to the house where Gbah was, there were probably 60 people sitting outside on the porch and in the yard. We sat next to Morris, the father, and talked for a while. He told us what had transpired since we left him at the pediatric hospital on Friday. The doctors at the hospital spent the weekend trying to stabilize him but were unsuccessful. A doctor called Morris into his office on Sunday and told him that they had done everything they could but Gbah was going to die. They suggested that Gbah go home (the cost of dying in a hospital here is high - it would cost about 2000 LD which is $33.00 USD to transport a body...people here don't have the kind of money). So Morris brought Gbah home and he died later that day with his family around him. If Gbah had remained at the first hospital, he would have still died but he would have died alone.

For the burial service, they couldn't get a hold of their pastor so they asked us to pray. I read two Scriptures and Jean prayed. Then six men carried Gbah to the gravesite which was just a 1 minute walk and we followed. The burials here are so fast...you take the body to the grave, fill in the dirt and then you leave. It took less than 10 minutes. It just seems like there should be more - I'm not sure what there should be more of but it seems too fast. They will have a memorial service in their church later this month. They do this because many relatives will come from up-country and must have time to travel.

Even though I've only known this family for six days, they treat us like we are someone important (this happens a lot, now that I think about it - all of our families treat us this way). It's humbling and uncomfortable. I'm not sure if they are being hospitable or if they really actually think we are important people. I wish they knew how much we are just ordinary, normal people. And in the case of our patients who are dying, we have almost nothing to offer them from a tangible perspective. But the great thing about this job is that we get to tell them that God loves them and that we love them.

We're getting another new patient in the morning, a 10 year old little boy named Levi with Burkitts lymphoma. We'll take him to the hospital for chemo and pray that we have a different outcome from our two patients with this disease who have died in the last two weeks.

I'm finding that every single day here is really, really difficult and I almost dread people asking me how my day was. But I wouldn't want to be doing anything different at this moment in time. I feel like I'm here for a reason and that God is really using me - I'm not really sure how He is using me but I'm greatly confident that He is.

Peace,
Michele